

Loading... Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (2009)by Jon Krakauer
![]()
No current Talk conversations about this book. For too long, I avoided selecting this book, thinking I already knew the story and its unfortunate outcome. But I finally gave in and picked it up, due in no small part to my previous enjoyment of Krakauer's earlier books. Once started, I soon regretted waiting so long. Krakauer presents Pat Tillman in very human terms, a patriot for sure, but not as an artificial superhero. The story behind the story of Tillman's unfortunate death in Afghanistan is detailed, and becomes a meaningful portion of the book. Krakauer raises a hint of the possibility of the fabricated heroic death story as being pushed by members of Bush's Administration, but it appears that the source and reasons for the cover-up story reside solely within the Army chain-of-command. I can understand the Military's desires to suppress the story of "friendly-fire" deaths, especially when involving someone of Pat Tillman's status. But the soldiers who pay the ultimate price, their families, and servicemen everywhere deserve to have the truth told about their ultimate sacrifice, and the assurance that battlefield medals awarded are for valor, not politically motivated. And Krakauer makes this point very clearly in this book. I liked the beginning of this book more than I did the end. It has good summaries of histories, good description of snippets of Pat Tillman's life growing up, some potentially interesting moments from Pat's college life, career and enlistment and a lot of disappointment for the reader. (At least this reader) The military descriptions are stilted, leaving moments that should have been filled with drama, very boring. The ambush scene, which ends in Pat's death, is boring the first time it is told, at the beginning of the book. It does not improve with the retelling the second time, hundreds of pages later. Also, I take issue the the author's omniscience. He tells his version of the events, without question, then pokes fun at the people who were actually there, who were trying to figure things out. It is the kind of Monday morning quarterbacking Tillman would have scoffed. Why is Jessica Lynch's story even relevant? Was the miasma of Pat Tillman's story not convincing enough? Also, why does Pat's story end with 10% of the book remaining. The last 10% was truly the most painful as the author highlights all his disdain for those involved. I would not recommend this book to anyone. I really was bored with the first 2/3 of this book. Sports Politics and War? yaaaawwwwn. But somewhere in that last third I found myself unable to stop thinking about what I was reading and what it all meant. Not sure I got out of it what most people did, but as I read it for my first book club I guess I will find out. Great book, interesting history of Afghanistan. I liked it.
Mr. Krakauer cobbled together his book in a spirit of desperation. Though he set out in search of Mr. Tillman’s whole story, he didn’t find what he was looking for. There is a master’s hand evident in this particular depiction of events in a life that will end too soon, meticulously built of pieces carefully chiseled from recent international history, political intrigue, first-hand reporting, thoughtful reading, and a feel for what is most human. The author, like his subject, purposefully strides out on his great battlefield too. Those who have spent time in the military and have seen it struggle not just with war but with everyday barracks life tend to err on the side of incompetence, while those who never have -- such as Krakauer -- tend to suspect conspiracy. The best-selling author Jon Krakauer has now told the full story in “Where Men Win Glory.” The combination of Krakauer and Tillman seems hard to resist: Krakauer is a masterly writer and reporter; “Into Thin Air,” his account of a disastrous climbing expedition on Mount Everest, is as riveting and harrowing a book as I’ve ever read. With Tillman, you would think he’d have all he needed to fashion an epic narrative. Unfortunately, he fails to pull it off. Krakauer -- whose forensic studies of the Emersonian Man in books such as "Into Thin Air" and 'Into the Wild" yield so much insight -- has turned in a beautiful bit of reporting, documenting Tillman's life with journals and interviews with those close to him.
Irrepressible individualist and iconoclast Pat Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract in May 2002 to enlist in the United States Army. Deeply troubled by 9/11, he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in Afghanistan. Though obvious to most on the scene that a ranger in Tillman's own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman's family and the American public for five weeks following his death, while President Bush repeatedly invoked Tillman's name to promote his administration's foreign policy. Biographer Krakauer draws on his journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research in Afghanistan to render this driven, complex, and uncommonly compelling figure as well as the definitive account of the events and actions that led to his death.--From publisher description. No library descriptions found. |
Popular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)796.332092 — Arts and Recreation Amusements and Recreation Athletic and outdoor sports and games Ball sports Inflated ball driven by the foot American football Biography And History BiographyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
Krakauer demonstrates again the utmost necessity of investigative journalism. He’s one of our best and I’m so grateful for his existence, tenacity, bravery (he spent months on the front lines in Afghanistan), and sheer audacity (much like Tillman’s mother, whose unending attempts to uncover the truth) to take on the highest levels of our military. If you want to understand the recent history of foreign powers in Afghanistan, this will add immensely to your knowledge. It is dated because Osama Bin Laden hadn’t been assassinated yet, but that is irrelevant to this narrative for the most part. (